EPISODE 5: MARENGO ## CHAPTER 1: THE ALPS The Great St. Bernard Pass, May 1800. Napoleon leads an army through the mountains. Forty thousand men, climbing paths designed for mules and goats, dragging artillery over snowfields and glaciers. The logistics are impossible—everyone says so. Hannibal crossed the Alps, yes, but Hannibal lost half his army doing it. No modern force has attempted such a crossing. Napoleon attempts it anyway. "The Austrians expect us to advance along the coast," he explains to his generals. "They have fortified every pass, every road. But they haven't fortified this route because they think it cannot be used." "Can it be used?" "We will find out." The crossing takes two weeks of unimaginable hardship. Soldiers collapse from exhaustion and altitude sickness. Horses slip on ice and tumble into chasms. Cannon are disassembled, packed onto mules, reassembled on the other side—a feat of engineering that would be impressive in a factory, let alone on frozen mountainsides. But they make it. When the French army emerges into the Po Valley, the Austrian command is caught completely off guard. Their forces are scattered—besieging Genoa, garrisoning fortresses, nowhere concentrated. Napoleon has achieved strategic surprise. "Now we destroy them," he says. "Before they can concentrate." --- ## CHAPTER 2: THE RACE FOR MILAN Northern Italy, May-June 1800. Napoleon drives...